


heir of nothing at all

by 95echelon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blanket Permission, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:06:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/95echelon/pseuds/95echelon
Summary: Let me tell you about a Harry, then, who grew up in a cupboard, lonely and quiet and worn; a Harry who grew up with a voice in his head that sang of bloodlust and glory.Let me tell you about a terribly brave boy and a terrible Horcrux and the death of innocence.





	1. listen. please, just listen.

**Author's Note:**

> The basic premise of this, of course, is that a soul is an endless thing, infinite, an otherworldly thing that isn't _halved_ by magic, that _cannot_ be halved like a bit of birthday cake, that is only damaged, tainted by the making of a Horcrux.  
>  That every Horcrux is a soul in itself, mangled and bleeding perhaps, but a soul in itself.
> 
> If this isn't how Horcruxes work, then honestly what the fuck even is the point of it, christ.

Here's what I don't understand - it took that shard in the diary months, scant months, to worm and whisper it's way into little Ginny Weasley's mind, a girl who was brave and kind and loyal and _fierce_ ; it took Tom Riddle the better part of a semester to sink his claws into her soul, but it took Voldemort _fourteen years?_

Fourteen years before Harry Potter's sleep shattered with nightmares, fourteen years before a Horcrux perched on his shoulder and sang horrors in his ear? A Horcrux encased in Harry's _soul_ itself, not a diary that a little girl occasionally wrote in, but a parasite sunk into his soul, and even then... Fourteen _years?_

Let's talk about a Harry then, who grew up in a cupboard, lonely and quiet and worn; a Harry who grew up with a voice in his head that whispered of anger and death.

Harry, at six, who saw his uncle looming over him, screaming until he was purple in the face, spittle raining down, and between one blink and the next, red would stain his vision and he'd see Vernon _screaming, burning, his chest reaved open, his guts spilling down like fleshy, pink snakes, staining the hardwood red and Harry would be filled with a joy so thorough, so profound, so wrenchingly pure, he couldn't breathe for it, he was drowning, his cup runneth over-_ And then, one blink and the next, and Uncle Vernon was back, unholy and terrifying, throwing Harry into the cupboard and, "Don't make a noise if you know what's good for you, boy!"

The thing about magic - the funny, capricious, terrible thing about magic - was you had to mean it. And if Harry, who was seven and entirely too little for the bloodlust whispering in his veins, didn't mean it, it didn't matter. _Harry_ didn't mean it - but the voice in his head _did_. And for magic, that was enough.

A Tuesday in September.  
An autumn morning, the third day of a new school year in 1987.  
That is when the story changed.

It began with a shirt - a burnt uniform shirt, because the press was cast-iron and the size of Harry's face and altogether too heavy for him, and it began with Petunia, shrilling at the top of her lungs, brandishing the scorched garment, and it began with Harry.

Harry, shaking under the weight of her words, malnourished and spindly and drowning in Dudley's oversized clothes, Lily's eyes tearing up in his little face and really - is it any wonder that when Dobby came knocking on his bedroom door all those years later, that Harry so readily took him in? For all that Harry Potter was a wizard, and Dobby No-Name was a house elf, how little of a difference had ever been between them?

But here, before his terrible, wonderful adventures, he was scared and angry; all those little, lonely, despairing things only a child can be - And the voice swam up from its secreted hollows in Harry's mind, a great, vengeful sea serpent rising, to the surface, to _destroy those who lashed out against it, burning, burning red-_

but you mustn't forget either, that this boy would turn fourteen and fight an Imperius off, an Imperius cast by the greatest Dark Lord Britain had ever faced-

here, at six, unloved and afraid, it was _harder_ though, so much harder, because at fourteen, he'd had Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley and home and hearth and hope and all that doesn't change a person, but it _helps, it helps-_

And Petunia Dursley, stopped dead, mid-tirade, frowning-  
And the lightbulb above her, flickered and crackled and shattered in a tinkling explosion-  
And she raised her bony fingers to her nose and wiped away blood-  
And the shirt she'd brandished caught fire-  
And she screamed-

But she _lived_. And Harry counted his first win against the voice.

This was a different Harry Potter that Hagrid rescued- A Harry who moved to the second bedroom when he was eight; who assembled a wardrobe from bargain bins and Salvation Army outposts; whose field trip requests were grudgingly signed. A Harry Potter who grew, not under the cruel thumb of Dickensian relations, but under the frightened, resentful gaze of grown-up bullies.

And Harry Potter'd never liked bullies, not the ones he lived with, not even the ones that lived in his head.

So in many ways- The story began the same.

Harry, spry and wicked-fast on his feet, and faster in his mind, who learns to dodge Dudley on the playground and dodge the voice when it whispers awful, terrible, no-good things- 

_rip them, tear them, make them **scream-**_

And he grows short and skinny and too nice for his own good, so you see, even though he never set a boa constrictor on pimply Piers Polkiss, this story always begins the same. 

When the giant knocked down the door and offered chocolate cake, the story began the same. Harry took the cake and the kindness like a starveling puppy, and the voice took the promise in the gentle giant's stories, and their stomach turned knots in heady anticipation.

In a secret pub in London, they swarmed to Harry all the same, shaking his hand and wiping gentle tears, and among them was a stuttering Quirinus Quirell, turbaned and pathetic and, then, from nowhere, a searing pain in Harry's scar, but for the beast rising from its depths and lashing out, until the pain suddenly, abruptly subsides-

'Why-'  
Harry tries to ask, but it has already slithered away, and the question wisps away.  
_Why are you doing this?_ he'd wanted to ask. _What are you hiding?_

The Alley, then, was a dream, unfurling in tangible contours- The spark of magic was new and familiar, the smell of an apothecary revolting and a comfort, the weight of a wand in his thin, calloused palm was like coming home. And when the wandmaker stooped down to Harry and whispered of _'great things- terrible, yes, but great,'_ the words coiled round and round in his mind, a great dragonlike thing, basking in the warmth of a promised sun.

He filled his pockets with gold and an unpleasant boy asked Harry what House he thought he'd be in, because the story began the same, remember? But the answer tripped off his lips in unfamiliar syllables, easy as breathing - _'Slytherin, of course. You?'_

The certainty dawned over him in the seconds that followed - _**he had not said that.**_ Those had not been his words. Which meant, which meant- 

_Hello?_ he thought, feeling foolish but perhaps even more scared, and altogether too certain that someone would reply-

But no one did. A foreign warmth settled low in his gut, and Harry thought he heard the distant, low-pitched sound _of a man, laughing softly to himself, a fire crackling and brandy glinting in crystal goblets, the softness of a rug between bare toes-_

And then a big, friendly giant, right off the pages of a Roald Dahl fairytale brought Harry, in that order, an ice cream, an owl and a story.

Perhaps the story was the most important.

These were the things an orphan learned on a warm summer day-

He had his father's face and his mother's eyes- He had a murderer's scar and too much heart- He had a soul-and-a-half and a reptilian gift- He had courage and strength and loyalty in every last breath, and oh, he had love, you must understand before we go any further, he had so much to give, so much love-

Harry Potter was a piecemeal boy, a Pinocchio cobbled by Fate, a wooden boy-who-wanted-to-be-real, a whole greater than the sum of his broken-up parts. So when he stood on the platform at King's Cross _\- he stood at this platform a hundred times again, but he didn't know that then; this platform in life, this platform in death -_ and saw the big white plastic signs saying "9" and "10" and his smile tilted to the left, canny and quick and utterly alien, and right in front of a gaping Muggle uncle, he drove his trolley straight into brick wall.

He never met the Weasleys, not then and not later, because his limbs walked through a wall of their own volition, while he gasped shockily in his head. He clambered aboard all by his lonesome and found a compartment that wasn’t empty, exactly, save for an older boy, a crest on his uniform lined in blue who stared at him when he walked in and proceeded to ignore him for the rest of the ride like a properly disaffected teenager.

Harry Potter did not mind this at all, for in his head, he was locked in furious debate with the voice, that slithering, whispering thing, although how far it qualified as a debate could itself be debated, seeing as how it largely consisted of Harry yelling at himself in his head, trying to awaken the slumberous parasite, trying to understand it, trying to convince himself he hadn't gone completely off his rocker.

He failed miserably, because of _course_ he did, in all three regards. He spent the rest of the ride re-reading one of their incredibly gross textbooks about squishing newt eyes and chopping frog liver, with a happily repulsed smile he tried to conceal with little success.

At some point, a bushy-haired girl peeked into the compartment and asked about a toad, to which Harry shrugged and to which the older boy scowled a bit harder and snapped, "Surrounded by Muggles, I don't believe it-," before carelessly flicking his wand and having a very startled toad zoom into their compartment and into his lap. 

"What spell was that?" she asked, awed.  
"Well above your grade, firstie. Piss off, would you?"  
The girl gasped, clutched the toad harder and obliged.

"What house are you in?" Harry asked, eyes narrowed.  
"Ravenclaw."

Harry decided he liked Ravenclaws, and also, completely despised them.  
The voice chuckled.

Several hours later, he was dealing with wobbly knees and an uncooperative stomach, while a wizened old hat sang about being brave (he didn't feel brave) and cleverness (he _certainly_ didn't feel very clever) and determination (he was thinking quite hard of running away). But then the Hat sang about making real friends and although he wasn't feeling particularly ambitious or cunning, he thought, _'Well, alright.'_

The warmth that curled through his chest at that thought, like campfire smoke was foreign - was not his. But it wasn't unwelcome. So this then - this. This is where it turned.  
This was a Harry Potter whose Sorting was responded to with deafening silence. Eleven years old, and whispers of murder all through his head, and when he was sorted into Slytherin, the students watched him with horrified eyes. 

Now, although he didn't know it, now they had their answer.

_How does a child survive a Killing Curse?  
Because even Death won't take him._

The glares of those lions, those proud, righteous warriors all, burned the back of his head as walked down the long length of the Hall. If looks could kill, the children of Hogwarts would’ve succeeded where the Dark Lord had failed, because here he was - walking amongst them, a living symbol of what could only be the greatest threat the Light had known. Here he was, this boy too terrible for Death. Here, although they didn't know it then, here was the boy they would swear to destroy. 

_in progress_


	2. these are the wars that children fought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And if you thought there was light at the end, I am sorry. I am.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please refer end notes for trigger warnings.

Harry sat next to the boy from Madam Malkin's, who smiled a thin, unflattering sort of smile at him, the kind Dudley smiled when he was about to ask for sweeties. The Slytherin table broke into polite applause as a pug-faced girl seated herself down the table and the boy never once took his eyes off Harry. "So it's true," he said, in a posh drawl once the noise had settled down. "Harry Potter at Hogwarts." He surveyed Harry impolitely, lingering on the crumpled tie and messy hair. "Got it right, did they?"

"Looks like it," Harry replied, realizing with some discomfort that the students around them had gone quiet in the way that suggested they were listening in very hard. Harry gulped discreetly. From behind Draco, two more faces turned towards him, both large and jowly. Harry had a brief, painful reminder of Aunt Marge's pitbulls.

"It's impolite to stare, Potter," the boy snapped, as if he was offended he didn't have Harry's complete attention. "I'm Draco. Draco Malfoy."

 _Malfoy._ And Harry's vision flickered, transposed, like a double-image on the telly during the middle of a summer rainstorm. Another boy, pale and proud and sneering looked at them now, eyes grey, chin high, hand stuck out for a shake. 

_"How nice for you," they sneered, matching poise for contempt, before turning away._  
_The Malfoy boy flinched minutely, and recovered._  
_"You'll find that having friends in high places will be very useful in Slytherin. I can help you with that."_  
_They chuckled. "You? Help me?"_  
_"Think I'm funny, do you?" the blond hissed scathingly into their ear. "You'd better start being a bit politer to your superiors, halfblood. You won't enjoy being friendless here."_  
_"And you," they murmured into the quiet that had engulfed them, "won't enjoy having_ me _as your enemy."_

_They flicked their hand carelessly, and Malfoy’s goblet shattered into crystalline shards just as tumult rose from the Gryffindor table. Apparently, they had acquired a 'Weasley'._

This was the boy then - this; his life overlapping with another’s, a foreigner’s words falling through his lips, an alien passenger who sent ozone-tasting magic pouring through his veins. Harry with his soft, open eyes and his nerves, forged of steel; Harry whose vision would fade to be replaced with gold-dusty memories and he could only try to keep his breathing steady in these terrible moments. Harry who only ever felt a measure of peace in the Defense classroom, where he felt something calling to him, something distant and ancient and truly his.

They made no trouble for this boy, this carelessly powerful child-warlock - they watched him with cautious, resentful, assessing eyes, teacher and student alike, the way he knew answers before the questions were asked, the way he flicked his long, thin fingers and magic rushed to his bidding like a great, scampering beast, and Harry Potter, this Harry Potter, his robes lined in green, the child that had a nation holding its tense, collective breath, curled to sleep behind emerald drapes and thought about how his bed felt, at once, nothing and everything, like his cupboard under the stairs.

This boy returned Neville Longbottom’s Remembrall simply by Summoning it to his palm - this boy who made Draco Malfoy turn deathly pale and speak no cruel words. He Summoned the little glass orb, tasting that coppery wash of electricity is his mouth, and passed it on to- no, not Weasley, not with that hateful glint in his eye, not the Patil girl either, wide-eyed and fearful, but to Hermione Granger, clever, friendless, desperate-to-please - walking past that gully of green grass between the two Houses. “Here,” he said, watching her eyes fly wide, “return this to Longbottom, would you?” She took the Remembrall from him gently, nodded a jerky yes and he watched her for a long, uncomfortable moment - the way she held herself, erect, unafraid, and the voice thought, _’This one. Yes.’_

 **Clever. Friendless. Unafraid.**

In this life, as in every life, in their best selves and their worst, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were destined to fall together.

On Halloween, he watched in mute horror as the Headmaster ordered the children of Slytherin into their dungeon dormitories - wasn't that where the _troll_ was? Did this man not _care?_ And Dumbledore caught the look in his eyes, shock and fear and betrayal, his blue eyes untwinkling behind half-moon glasses.

On Halloween, he walked, single-file, Nott in front and Zabini right behind him, magic roiling between his fingertips like static, like barely-leashed lightning. It was several hours before the staff found and neutralized the troll, while they sat in silent vigil in the dark, firelit Common Room.  
How could they have known, in their silence, that history, that snake that swallowed itself whole, had begun to repeat itself, half a century later? This time, though, they didn't find a little girl frozen in death in a bathroom stall, eyes wide open, the echo of a scream on her face. The elves found-  
_blood in a girls' bathroom that night-_  
_a foot, still in white socks and Mary-Janes-_  
_half of a little hand, still clutched around a wand-_  


They found walls streaked crimson like a Jackson Pollock, and amidst it all, they found a silvery figure curled in on herself, sobbing into her transluscent knees.

That night, then, Albus thought about an orphan boy from a lifetime ago, tall and blond, his smile wild and free and astonishingly lovely. He thought about an orphan boy from many years ago, thin and dark, his eyes guarded, his smile full of teeth and practiced warmth. He thought about an orphan boy, small and quiet, purple bruises under his eyes like he fought terrible nightmares, and he thought about how he had never seen Harry Potter smile.

The day after Halloween, the children of Hogwarts, less one, sat in a Great Hall hung in black.

No package arrived for Harry Potter that Christmas. Gifts appeared in a glittering pyramid at the foot of his bed, small and neatly wrapped - a silver pendant of a snake with jeweled green eyes, a book about the dragons of Transylvania, a Snitch autographed by Eppie Silverfeather herself. Tributes, all, from dormmates, housemates - Harry recognized them for what they were, a tentative fealty declared in cloistered green; a white flag raised on Salazar's ground. These trinkets arrived - no package arrived, no note in loopy handwriting that said, 'Your father would've wanted you to have it. Use it wisely.' This Harry Potter, with his secretive eyes and his crackling magic - this Harry Potter was too... Too _something_. Too young to be dangerous, but old enough to be... To be.  
This Harry Potter did not receive his legacy, not this time, not this life.  
But it mattered not at all - Tom Riddle hardly needed cheap props to go wandering through the night in his own home.

These nights, they held themselves back, the terribly brave boy and the terrible Horcrux. These nights were their Switzerland.  
In the day, Tom and Harry would wrest for control, no peace in their mind, no ease in their movements. Words and whispers would slip past their tongue; curses and sighs and disjointed prayer, tripping like butterflies, bright and jeweled and hardly there. Their chest caught in a roiling frustration, hellbroth and all fire- Their spells stuttered and fizzled when they locked their minds in furious, tumbling battle across the landscape of Harry's waking dreams.

But at night... At night, they would roam the darkened hallways, and Tom would whisper the castle's secrets in Harry's mind, his voice a low, satisfied murmur that filled Harry's mouth with the taste of honey, sweet and sticky and warm.

_in progress_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major character death; graphic descriptions of violence;

**Author's Note:**

>  **Blanket Permission:** Go ahead and translate, make podfic, rework the fic, or do whatever other transformative work you can think of. If the work is hosted on another site, drop me a comment or email and I'll put a link in the story notes!


End file.
